The structures and layouts of colonies can often be as vastly different as the people who settle them. Some are constructed using prefabricated self-constructing skyscrapers and other beautiful, high-tech buildings that turn the chosen area of an undeveloped world into a city worthy of many outer Core Worlds in a matter of days. Others are shanty towns constructed of modified cargo modules and even scrapped freighter hulls. Most utilize a variety of prefabricated colony structures ranging from civilian habitat modules to mil-spec fortified portable bases. Habitat modules are the core of a colony, the initial prefab homes of the colonists until they build better or more permanent structures. These range from small, mobile-home-like single-family units comprised of an environmentally-sealed thick outer shell with modular hull sections to allow for expansion all the way to portable self-expanding apartment buildings and high-rise condominiums. Regardless of the specific luxuriousness and size of a hab module, they have several elements in common. First, they contain all of the necessities for the inhabitants to live there that any home or apartment would- a kitchen of some sort, bedroom or bunks, toilet and hygiene facilities, etc. Secondly, unlike many conventional residences, hab modules are completely autonomous and possess storage tanks, filtration and reclamation systems, and nanobattery, solar and cold fusion reactor power plants built into them. In many ways, this makes newer colonies far more efficient than the older cities of the Core Worlds as hab modules remove the need for complex and pervasive power and waste reclamation infrastructures. Water is often the only outside infrastructure the modules need for prolonged habitation.